ng contrived to resist, on mine for having controlled my
impatience.

Wanting a little rest, and understanding each other as if by a natural
instinct, she said to me,

"My friend, I have an appetite which promises to do honour to the supper;
are you able to keep me good company?"

"Yes," I said, knowing well what I could do in that line, "yes, I can;
and afterwards you shall judge whether I am able to sacrifice to Love as
well as to Comus."

She rang the bell, and a woman, middle-aged but well-dressed and
respectable-looking, laid out a table for two persons; she then placed on
another table close by all that was necessary to enable us to do without
attendance, and she brought, one after the other, eight different dishes
in Sevres porcelain placed on silver heaters. It was a delicate and
plentiful supper.

When I tasted the first dish I at once recognized the French style of
cooking, and she did not deny it. We drank nothing but Burgundy and
Champagne. She dressed the salad cleverly and quickly, and in everything
she did I had to admire the graceful ease of her manners. It was evident
that she owed her education to a lover who was a first-rate connoisseur.
I was curious to know him, and as we were drinking some punch I told her
that if she would gratify my curiosity in that respect I was ready to
tell her my name.

"Let time, dearest," she answered, "satisfy our mutual curiosity."

M---- M---- had, amongst the charms and trinkets fastened to the chain of
her watch, a small crystal bottle exactly similar to one that I wore
myself. I called her attention to that fact, and as mine was filled with
cotton soaked in otto of roses I made her smell it.

"I have the same," she observed.

And she made me inhale its fragrance.

"It is a very scarce perfume," I said, "and very expensive."

"Yes; in fact it cannot be bought."

"Very true; the inventor of that essence wears a crown; it is the King of
France; his majesty made a pound of it, which cost him thirty thousand
crowns."

"Mine was a gift presented to my lover, and he gave it to me:"

"Madame de Pompadour sent a small phial of it to M. de Mocenigo, the
Venetian ambassador in Paris, through M. de B----, now French ambassador
here."

"Do you know him?"

"I have had the honour to dine with him on the very day he came to take
leave of the ambassador by whom I had been invited. M. de B---- is a man
whom fortune has smiled upon, but he has captivated it by his